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Well I've had this thing sitting in a drawer for the better part of a month and, for various lifestyle reasons, not had an opportunity to use it. Honestly, it's been killing me having it sitting there and not being able bring it out in anger. Well finally had 5 portraiture sessions on Sunday and while I wasn't brave enough to use it throughout the day I did use it out for a few snaps.

First things first: Everything horrible you may have heard about this camera is true. On almost every level it is a genuine 24 carat piece of shit. It takes about 4 seconds to find focus every single shot. Often it fails to find focus. For the first time ever I have dozens of out of focus shots. The battery life is abysmal. I figure about 150 shots per charge. To put that in context I take about 1,200 shots in a day. I am going to be buying up big on batteries... The white balance... To be fair I haven't heard anyone else complain about this, so it may just be me, but I find white balance flutuates wildly between setups so that I have to be judging it fresh every time I change the lights or backdrop. Never dealt with this before. It's horrible. And after you take an image there is about a five second delay before you can view the photo. If you're just trying to judge lighting and hurry things along with an inexperienced model these are the longest five seconds of your life.

Worst of all, the RAW images can't be edited in photoshop. You need to use Sigma's own proprietary software which sits alongside Itunes and Word as the world's worst written piece of software. I read dozens of people complaining about the speed of the software and largely wrote it off. Everyone says you make a change and then you have to wait four seconds to see it take effect. I wrote that off as photographers using Mac or laptops and so not having the hardware to deal with it. I built my own 'puter and know it's super fast and so I knew I'd be fine. Wrong! Doesn't matter what the hardware is, the software can't keep pace. You edit at snails pace or not at all. Really this camera sucks....

BUT BUT BUT.....

holy shit the images are beautiful. The final images are 50 MBs in size and absurdly detailed. You can shot a full body shot and still zoom in on the eye and have clean detail within it to work with. People who describe this as a mini medium format camera are dead on. It just doesn't feel like a dslr at all. The camera almost refuses to blow out highlights. Given I'm a hack and give cameras plenty of opportunity to do just that then that is a big deal for me.

First edited image. It's nothing special, because it's just one of my standard portraiture shoots that I rush through at the rate of 200-300 shots an hour. On top of which I've edited it just now and I'm blind drunk. I've just been out to dinner where I had half a bottle of wine and significant amounts of scotch but I think you can still see some qualities of the camera here. Look at the definition in the boa. My old 7d would just have presented that as a smudgy brown mass but here every strain is visible. For under a grand I'm super happy and impressed with this terrible camera. Oh and shot at 1/800th which was a novel experience:

So my trusty ten year old Nikon D40 but the dust right in the middle of shooting a concert over the weekend. I'm now the proud owner of a Nikon D3300. There's a bit more of a learning curve than I anticipated but man, this thing is pretty sweet. Much lighter, better reaction to natural lighting, a 5 fps burst mode and just way more customization options than the old rig had. I'm thinking that I basically want to retrain myself now that I have the new setup, as I'd fallen into some lazy habits with the old one and really want to take advantage of all that this thing can do for me.

By a complex set of circumstances that aren't worth going into I recently came into possession of a Nikon d610. Full frame which is nice for my composite work. Very nice images of it though I find it hard to love. Probably because the body feels plastic and consumer-y. Controls are not fantastic and I can't get flash sync at anything faster 1/160th for some reason. Very much a pro-sumer camera... But it takes a damned good picture. Better than my Canon 7d which feels so much more solid and professional and so much more reliable than my compact Sigma- which has the best picture of the 3 but misses focus so often I reluctantly had to shelve it. So a good acquisition considering I didn't have to pay for it although I slightly regret the transaction. I'd been all set to buy a Canon 5ds which with its 50mp sensor would have to be the best studio camera going. Can't bring myself to shell out the four grand now that I already have a full frame dslr. But I still fantasise about what I could do with one of those...

My last Nikon, which was a D40, lasted me 10 years, and it got used A LOT and sometimes under very rough circumstances (shooting a GWAR show and getting covered in fake blood being just one example). It took a beating and kept delivering. It finally died a few months ago (in the middle of shooting the Mayhem show) and I wound up going with a Nikon D3300 because I got it for an astoundingly good price. It's a fair bit different and I still feel like I'm getting used to it but so far, no complaints.

Yeah no doubt it is in reality a workhorse that will last me years but it just feels a bit flakey. Which is entirely subjective and possible half imagination. In truth I really only have two complaints. The Flash Sync topping out at 1/160 is not good though possibly there's another hole in my workflow somewhere and the Nikon is only partially to blame. And the screen is bad. Very low contrast. I hate when clients ask to see an image now because I know the picture looks nothing like what they're seeing. I'm always reassuring them now which feels hacky.

Going from the D40 to the D3300... the newer model weighted a lot less. That took some getting used to and at first, yeah, without that weight it felt a bit cheaper. Now that I'm used to, I find it's much easier to use, especially if you're out on a hike or something or shooting a concert - less wear on the shoulders due to the lighter form factor.

And the screen is bad. Very low contrast. I hate when clients ask to see an image now because I know the picture looks nothing like what they're seeing. I'm always reassuring them now which feels hacky.

If you're in your own studio, why not use tethering to show your clients a proof on a laptop or tablet, Dom?

'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

I wouldn't want to be physically tethered to a computer as I run around a lot fixing lights and whatnot and always leave the camera hanging round my neck throughout. The d610 doesn't have wifi built in. I did at one point buy a small modem and after a day spent dicking around with it's firmware managed to get it to act as a wifi for the camera. I was very excited at my cleverness for a little while but ultimately it just proved a bit too buggy to be worth it.

I wouldn't want to be physically tethered to a computer as I run around a lot fixing lights and whatnot and always leave the camera hanging round my neck throughout. The d610 doesn't have wifi built in. I did at one point buy a small modem and after a day spent dicking around with it's firmware managed to get it to act as a wifi for the camera. I was very excited at my cleverness for a little while but ultimately it just proved a bit too buggy to be worth it.

Ah, I see, Dom. It can depend on your equipment and method. I've a friend that shoots a lot in the studio with a Phase One and swears by tethering, but if you're more mobile and impromptu during the shoot (David Bailey-style) it can indeed be a pain.

My X-Pro2 has wifi, something I didn't think I needed but which is really handy. We mentioned street shots in my thread about Cornwall, and with my X-Pro2 I can shoot a photograph across to an Android phone or tablet in order to show it to someone whose photograph I've taken, if they ask. It's the future

'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

Absolutely and I love gadgets so I'd love to set up a big screen or something behind me and have each photo being sent to that after the shot was taken. Would probably freak out first time clients who aren't used to seeing themselves but I can imagine it would be an amazing tool for models who know what they are doing.

It's an odd quirk that it seems like most consumer cameras these days have wifi built in while high end gear really doesn't seem to. Even a camera like the Nikon d810 (which I'm considering upgrading to) doesn't have it.